Editorials

Important editorials and op-ed's published in national and regional news outlets related to wild salmon restoration in the Columbia and Snake Rivers.

March 02, 2015

Lewiston Morning Tribune Commentary: Waddell is not so easy to ignore

Friday, February 27, 2015 By Chris Carlson

To breach or not to breach the four lower Snake River dams is again being discussed across the region, thanks, in no small part, to an excellent front page article in a recent Sunday edition of the Lewiston Tribune written by Eric Barker.

Thanks, in no small part, also to Jim Waddell, a longtime civilian employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, now retired, who skillfully took a part in earlier corps economic studies attempting to validate the thesis that it would be more expensive to breach the dams than to keep them running.

That just did not pass the common-sense test for Waddell. So after he retired from the corps as a deputy district engineer, he sank his teeth into a hard-nosed analysis of claims made by the corps. To say he found skewed assumptions, ignored issues and cooked numbers would be seriously understating what he unearthed.

Allow me a chortle or two. Two years ago I published my second book, "Medimont Reflections," which contained 13 essays on other issues and other people I had worked with during my almost 40 years of public-sector involvement.

Two of the essays should have generated some controversy inasmuch as they dealt with the four lower Snake dams and with the Northwest Power Planning Council, of which I was Idaho's first appointee and sat for almost a year.

And they followed up with jeering the loudest against the usual suspects of federal waste - whether it was paying $435 for a hammer, $600 for a toilet seat or $7,000 for a coffee pot during the Reagan era.

For some, it was the late Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, pouring nearly $400 million into a bridge linking 50 residents of Gravina Island to the town of Ketchikan - famously dubbed the "Bridge to Nowhere."

For others, it was the king of congressional pork, the late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., spreading $1.5 billion on his "Corridor H" project, otherwise known as the "Highway to Nowhere" because it stops 10 miles short of the Virginia state line.

How many of your own neighbors railed against the Obama administration allocating $500 million to the solar cell manufacturer Solyndra - only to have the company file for bankruptcy and fire all its employees?

Daily Astorian Editorial: Same old story - Obama buys into the sad inertia of low expectations on salmon

Monday, September 16, 2013

Although this year’s relatively abundant returns of fall Chinook might seem to mark a kind of success in the long-running struggle to ensure salmon survival, true progress remains elusive. In particular, a newly revised plan for restoring wild salmon is disappointing.

Going by the peculiar name of biological opinion (bi-op for short), this planning document from the federal NOAA Fisheries service is the essential blueprint for how the federal government will meet its obligations to salmon under the Endangered Species Act. Heroically no-nonsense federal judge James Redden, who recently retired, repeatedly held federal feet to the fire as bureaucrats offered bi-ops that made only superficial progress toward setting salmon on a path to sustainable populations.

Perhaps rolling the dice that a new judge won’t want to continue in Redden’s proud tradition of profound skepticism, NOAA Fisheries’ latest effort remains rooted in the games of the past. In the same way it has enthusiastically embraced other Bush administration priorities like snooping on American communications, the Obama administration also continues offering “stay-the-course” salmon plans. These defer to the Columbia River’s industrial users while making little real effort to permanently repair the disconnections caused by dams and reservoirs.

Daily Astorian Editorial: North of Falcon is good news: There are chinook and coho seasons

Monday, April 15, 2013

“North of Falcon” might sound like the title of a Hardy Boys adventure novel, but it is the key to real-life adventures for thousands of real people who fish in Pacific Northwest maritime and coastal waters.

The 2013 North of Falcon process was concluded last week at the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s meeting in Portland. Council members conduct weeks of meetings leading up to this decision each year, with PFMC staff putting in much additional preparation time. Interested parties avidly monitor the entire process.

The good news is there will be seasons for Chinook and coho salmon in the Columbia River, coastal watersheds and offshore waters. This has not always been the case and it is no small thing. For example, subject to change as salmon runs develop, the iconic Buoy 10 recreational salmon season will start on its traditional date of Aug. 1. Until Sept. 1, there is a daily limit of two salmon, only one of which may be a Chinook. Other opportunities continue through the end of the year.

However, the overall tenor of 2013 continues a long trend of essentially conservative seasons. Managers tend to react quickly to any negative trends, and slowly or not at all to unexpected strength in returns of hatchery-produced fish.

This is a result of the need to rigorously protect any possible wild salmon mixed among the returnees. Minimizing the number of endangered fish that are hooked and injured before being released dictates a degree of caution that can sometimes be agonizing to fishermen and the businesses that depend on them.

The worse news is that salmon returns continue to be little but a shadow of what they once were. The hydropower system, habitat degradation and barriers to passage, past management errors, ocean conditions and other factors all combine to produce seasons that are pathetic by historical standards.

Although she is most familiar with the situation around Puget Sound, comments by the Swinomish Tribe’s fisheries manager are relevant throughout the Northwest:

“Salmon habitat continues to be lost and damaged at an alarming rate, and this trend shows no signs of improvement. Every year it is increasingly difficult to develop fisheries that meet the needs of Indian and non-Indian fishermen while still protecting weak wild stocks. Conservative fisheries, such as those developed for this year, must go hand-in-hand with protecting and restoring habitat to return salmon to abundance.”

Fixing degraded habitat is far easier said than done. It requires money and cooperation. But there are positive developments. Watershed restoration and preservation are now very much on the agenda. They are forethoughts rather than afterthoughts.

Much has been lost that will never be recovered. But from a court order that requires significant culvert restorations in Washington to dam removals on the Elwha and Klamath rivers, incremental improvements are being made. These may or may not be enough to counteract damage elsewhere, but they are a start.

February 11, 2013

Seattle Times Editorial: BPA, the next 75 years

Managing Northwest hydropower interests puts the Bonneville Power Administration into local frays and national skirmishes.

January 28, 2013

THE Bonneville Power Administration bids farewell to a good steward of a major Pacific Northwest institution and asset, as it welcomes a new administrator.

Steve Wright is stepping down as chief executive of BPA at the end of January. He has been in the top job since November 2000, in a long career that began with the power-marketing agency in 1981.

BPA was 75 years old in 2012, which means its role in the regional economy has long been taken for granted. The availability of cheap hydropower has driven everything from the development of an atomic weapon to the aerospace industry, aluminum plants, agricultural irrigation, server farms and, now, the bright lights to grow marijuana.

BPA’s dams have provided electricity, enabled the development of inland ports and caused havoc with salmon populations.

Wright has been in the middle of all the fights. He gets credit for doing a good job under difficult circumstances in the wake of the West Coast energy-marketing crisis in the early 2000s.

He also receives praise for reviving BPA’s energy conservation and efficiency efforts.

With the election over, it’s time for our new and returning elected officials to get to work making good on their campaign promises.

At the top of everyone’s list is job creation. We’ve got to get people back to work. Fortunately in the Northwest, I see some good prospects to do just that.

One of our region’s biggest challenges, to restore endangered Columbia Basin salmon, is also a tremendous opportunity to craft a comprehensive plan that recovers salmon while creating — some of us would say re-creating — good jobs right here in the Northwest.

Last year, a federal judge rejected the federal government’s Columbia and Snake Rivers salmon plan. It was the government’s third consecutive failed plan in a decade. The court ordered a new plan, due in just over a year at the end of 2013.

Rather than ask the agencies to simply update their old plan with small tweaks, however, my company, Yakima Bait, and hundreds of other Washington businesses believe that our economy and our towns would be far better served by a new, collaborative approach.

The Obama administration and our region’s leaders need to recognize that the Columbia Basin’s salmon problem is also a jobs problem. The opportunity is to fix both together. Done right, a lawful, science-based plan crafted by the people of the region can create thousands of new jobs in Washington and across the Pacific Northwest.

Thirty years ago, five or six major tackle companies operated in the Northwest, each with a strong customer base here, along with a national market.

Today, Yakima Bait is the only one left standing. The others went out of business or shrunk and were bought out. The decline of these businesses has paralleled the decline of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia Basin. I fear our sector will continue losing ground without serious and durable improvements in the fishery.

I know that times change. We can’t re-create the past, nor should we. But we can work toward a better future, as Northwesterners who care about healthy salmon, clean and affordable energy and a reliable inland freight transportation system.

If we succeed in moving salmon and steelhead off the endangered species list by dramatically rebuilding their numbers, we can create conditions that will lead to fishing and recreation jobs on a scale much greater than today’s.

Just the modest bumps in salmon numbers that we’ve seen over the past couple of years (the result of good ocean conditions and more spill at the dams, ordered by the court to help fish) have helped give our industry some temporary relief after years of decline. Completing the job by achieving sustained salmon recovery is our next step.

Yakima Bait is a $10 million-a-year company, based in Central Washington, supporting 200 family wage jobs here and in Mexico. I see young people coming to work for us, full of ideas and wanting to raise their families here. They deserve a bright future, and they can have it — right here in central Washington — if these salmon recover.

I know other good jobs also depend on the Columbia and Snake rivers. None of our sectors can stand still. Changes are under way to the federal dams and their role in our economies quite apart from salmon. The sportfishing and tackle industries believe further change is needed at the dams to restore salmon, but I also believe we can find paths forward, together, that work for fishermen, farmers, energy producers and users and others with a stake in a thriving Columbia Basin.

In that spirit, hundreds of Washington businesses have asked the president and our members of Congress, to change salmon policy so it is lawful, science-based, puts job creation center stage and lets river users collaborate directly with each other — along with Northwest states, Columbia River tribes and federal agencies — to find lasting solutions. The time for that collaboration is now. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.

A cold-water sport fishing authority, Buzz Ramsey is brand manager for Yakima Bait Co. He lives in Klickitat with his wife, Maggie, and their boys Blake and Wade.

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Save Our wild Salmon is a diverse, nationwide coalition working together to restore wild salmon and steelhead to the rivers, streams and marine waters of the Pacific Northwest for the benefit of our region's ecology, economy and culture.